April 25, 2010

From antiquity to today, the evil in the world has always been a powerful mandate for evolutionary thinking. God would not have designed or created this evil world, so it must have originated by the blind play of natural law. For centuries this solution has fueled atheism, but from where did evil-ness come?

The evil in the world is obvious and upsetting. Atheists, no less than others and perhaps even more so, are exercised by creation's terrors. Earthquakes and tsunamis kill thousands, diseases terrorize, floods destroy and droughts starve. Then there is the seemingly unending narrative of predation in the biological world. Nature is red in tooth and claw, as Lord Tennyson put it.

Atheists often proclaim this problem of evil as a justification for their beliefs but ironically this evil is as much a problem for atheism as it is a motivation. The problem is that atheism fails to...Read More.

37 comments:

Well, Dan, the article wasn't very good- he lost me when he said "The problem is that atheism fails to explain the existence of evil." Why should it be incumbent upon atheism to explain the existence of evil?

"The evil in the world is obvious and upsetting. Atheists, no less than others and perhaps even more so, are exercised by creation's terrors. Earthquakes and tsunamis kill thousands, diseases terrorize, floods destroy and droughts starve. Then there is the seemingly unending narrative of predation in the biological world. Nature is red in tooth and claw, as Lord Tennyson put it.

Atheists often proclaim this problem of evil ...."

Now, what he is talking about here is NOT evil, although thats what he calls it. He is talking about natural disasters and predators killing to survive. Is this evil? Is this what you Dan call evil? Surely "evil" is morally objectionable, as opposed to "bad things happening".

Dan, If we believed that gravity could not be over come then NO we would not be able to fly. However since people broke from the shackles of religion and embrass their intellect we now can fly. (planes etc.)

I heard that some theist was claiming that the volcano reruption was caused by women in todays societies showing too much clevage (.)(.) and this pissed of God so he had a hissy fit. LOL What theist lack in logic they make up for in imagination.

"Atheists often proclaim this problem of evil as a justification for their beliefs but ironically this evil is as much a problem for atheism as it is a motivation. The problem is that atheism fails to explain the existence of evil."

First off, the "problem of evil" is specific to monotheistic religions with an all-powerful, good deity. Once any part of this is rejected (either paganism or atheism), it's not a problem.

Thus explaining the existence of evil is about on par as explaining the existence of rocks or the air. (And I do think it's explainable, just like science can explain how the rocks were made). But it's not a question of solving cognitive dissonance, but practical (e.g. how to reform criminals, psychology, etc)

So Dan, what kind of vegetables did that alligator eat before the Fall? Kinda hard to do that with sharp pointy carnivore teeth, or did the alligator have different teeth back then? And a different digestive system, and a different set of instincts?

Also, can you point me to where in the Bible it says all this stuff? I don't recall anything about vegetarian alligators in Scripture.

Dan: you may be right about my getting senile, but you seem to have forgotten that you got trounced on your "Carnivores are secret vegans" thread by Stan, Quasar, and myself- with some pvblivsian contrariness tossed in for good measure. But thanks for linking- it's a good read.

You said there: I am sure I can find proof that the wolf and lion can digest vegetables. The Bible isn't a lie there is no way it would take this many years before the discovery of a lie. I am doing a post about it that will shut that augment down forever.

Still waiting, and still waiting for the Scripture supporting pre-Fall veggie-munching gators...

Let me pick another animal. What vegetables are you suggesting huge Sperm Whales used to feed on? These mammals need to consume massive amounts of food - so much that eating fish all day just wont do it. They need to eat large (relative to us) prey, large squid etc. To quote wikipedia:

"The total annual consumption of prey by sperm whales worldwide is estimated to be about 100,000,000 short tons (91,000,000 t) — a figure greater than the total consumption of marine animals by humans each year."

They didn't God all pissy that his creations Adam and Eve ate an apple so now goes about createing "evil" things. He knew this would happen thats why he created animals with adaptations for eating meat because he knew in advance what/is going to happen.

"Please provide the evidence they existed before the fall of man first."

Assume the parasites didn't exist, then after the fall, parasites had to be created by God as they are now (unless you want to say they evolved). However, parasites are evil (they eat meat). Thus God must have created them as evil. God can't create evil, therefore they must have existed before the fall.

Genesis 1:30 does not say God only let them eat plants (green ones at that). For instance if I say you can eat pizza, it doesn't mean pizza is the only thing you can eat, you could still have a burger. Just because you have been given a gift doesn't mean it's the only thing you have. Thus your interpretation of the scripture can be wrong.

@Ant, according to Isaiah, snakes will live off dust. Didn't you know that their digestive systems work like that.

>>What proof of snakes being capable of living off vegies do you have?

I already pointed that out Isaiah 65:25 "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD."

Why not plausible? What makes you more infallible? If a priest/pastor/some sort of clergyman disagreed with you, would you say that your interpretation is right. Do you have the pride to call yourself more holy than everyone else?

Dan, >>What proof of snakes being capable of living off vegies do you have?<<

I want proof not some bible verse. Is there any evidence for "fall of man theory"? Not where the theory is written (bible) but actual evidence. Like wouldn't there be fossils of now carnivorous animals... say crocodiles that show evidence they were herbivores? (from fossils diet can be determined)

>>and dust shall be the serpent's meat<< maybe the person who wrote that misinterpreted there hallucination and "snake" actually meant "worm"

i have a couple of questions for those who dont believe in evil. were the nazi death camps, the soviet gulags, the cambodian killing fields evil? if not, how does one condemn them as atrocities? presuming one does condemn them. Dan (never posted on this site before)

New Dan- Hi and welcome! I think what you're asking is, how can atheists have ideas of right and wrong they can act upon, if they don't have a God to tell them what is right and what is wrong. Please tell me if I'm off the mark here.

First, an observation. No matter where atheists get or don't get their ideas of right and wrong from, atheists do not behave noticeably worse than theists. In fact, the lowest rates of violence in the modern world are found in those societies with the highest rates of atheism. So while there is blood on the hands of followers of all belief systems, there's no evidence that atheism produces more bad people than theism.

So, to answer your question: where do atheists get their morals from? Answer: pretty much the same place you do. Our morals, atheist or theist, come from a combination of our genetic heritage as social animals, and our cultural heritage as members of societies that were only made possible by the evolution of laws, religions, mores, and other codifications of right ways to behave. And right ways to behave are those beliefs that have worked to build successful societies, and do not conflict overmuch with our genetic heritage.

Of course, there's more to it than that, but what this means is that my morals are probably not all that different from yours, except that I do not defer to sacred texts.

Yea, most here believe that morality is merely subjective through trial and error. They discount the gifts from God, one is called a conscience.

Morality is embedded. How it got there is a denial game by atheists.

Otherwise, how can they impose their belief that there is "no God" and religion is a "bad thing" with absolute fever if they believe that morals are subjective. They have to borrow from the Christian worldview to explain theirs.

Ahh, but now you're painting with too broad a brush. Some atheists believe it's okay for people to believe in God, just as some Christians think it's okay for people to believe in Buddhism. Of course there are those intolerant on either side.But religion is good in so much as it encourages a society to thrive, people are given a higher goal to aspire towards, religion can encourage neighbors to gather together, and to aid the poor.Religion is bad when it causes suffering and evil that otherwise wouldn't exist. When someone is killed based on superstition or heretical ideas, when wars occur because of conflicting faiths, intolerance and ostracism of people otherwise causing no harm, refusing to persue lines of inquiry which could lead to good because of entrenched dogma.

Some would argue that religion is unnecessary with modern society. We no longer need it for the functions it used to serve (keeping people together, charity), instead a secular government can fulfill that role. Thus when compared with the myraid of evil things done in the name of religion, on the whole it is causing more harm than good.

>>Thus when compared with the myraid of evil things done in the name of religion, on the whole it is causing more harm than good.

Well we agree then, enacting God's will can result with bad things happening. That is not the conversation though.

>>Some would argue that religion is unnecessary with modern society.

Well at least you are not one of them. :7)

>>When someone is killed based on superstition or heretical ideas, when wars occur because of conflicting faiths, intolerance and ostracism of people otherwise causing no harm, refusing to persue lines of inquiry which could lead to good because of entrenched dogma.

So you would agree that the few that will not conform to the modern agenda of conservation, environmental considerations, and population control that they should NOT be "delt" with? The religion of today is the environment. Is it OK to force sterilization, just because a very large group of us all want 20+ children? You do understand what I am getting at. It goes both ways. If we are all free that is. Or are you merely claiming that your views only matter. That made me think of a post "The Faith of the Atheists" watch the video if you want that truth. Also look at the origin of our rights (2nd video) in case you are confused.

>> Some atheists believe it's okay for people to believe in God, just as some Christians think it's okay for people to believe in Buddhism.

That would, by definition, disqualify them as a Christian though. That is like saying some Christians are perfectly fine with worshiping the devil.

My point is that morality is not merely subjective or "value judgments"

"Then I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured out for myself–what apparently the Chief Justice couldn’t figure out for himself–that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any ‘reason’ to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring–the strength of character–to throw off its shackles…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable ‘value judgment’ that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these ‘others?’ Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure that I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me–after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited." --Ted Bundy, cited in Louis P. Pojman, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 3rd edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 1999), 31-32.

Otherwise, how can they impose their belief that there is "no God" and religion is a "bad thing" with absolute fever if they believe that morals are subjective. They have to borrow from the Christian worldview to explain theirs.

Right....that's why the same people who pretend to be "pro-life" are the same ones who love and worship the same god who had pregnant women and babies killed several times in the OT, and is currently in their view, in control of every miscarriage that ever happens.

Right, that's "absolute morality" for you.

We "borrow" nothing about morality from you idiots. Morals develop over time. The bible is actually one of the best examples of this.

Compare OT morality to today. Are people allowed to kill pregnant women today?

"So you would agree that the few that will not conform to the modern agenda of conservation, environmental considerations, and population control that they should NOT be "dealt" with? The religion of today is the environment. Is it OK to force sterilization, just because a very large group of us all want 20+ children?"No, I believe that you should be free to do so, as long as it doesn't harm others. The thing is though that we're aware that more people causes more problems with the environment so you should have to help out with righting the imbalance you're creating. If 20+ kids puts a huge burden on say the water supply for an area, it should be up to that family to assist in that matter, it would be unjust to allow your family to use up all the water causing a drought and killing others. Also if you have more children than you can support I think you're doing wrong (I'd see it as harm done to children). A rule of thumb I tend to use is that "if everyone did this would it be a good thing?" I think everyone having 20+ children would be bad, we'd end up destroying the environment, and that would make us pretty poor stewards of God's creation now wouldn't it.

Now regarding the idea that subjective morality is meaningless:

"Then I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective.... the rationality of one value judgment was zero...."

Ahh, the immediate issue I take with this is that subjective =/= rational or meaningful.

"In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure that I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you."Ah but there is an incentive to follow the law or 'subjective value judgements', we explicitly write punishments into the law. Rape and murder gets you life in prison. I fail to see how the religious offer a different opinion, just rape and murder will send you to hell (God's prison in the afterlife). If we're going to argue punishment is irrelevant, than rape and murder are equally acceptable from an atheistic subjective morality or a religious absolute morality stance.

So in either case, yes rape and murder may give you immediate satisfaction, but you'll have to balance that against either a prison sentence or a sentence to hell. Thus it's really just a risk-reward calculation in either case. It's just hell claims to have an infinite negative with a 100% certainty.

Inspiration

"I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born." ~Ronald Reagan----"A great many of those who debunk traditional values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process." ~C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1944)----"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for." ~C.H. Spurgeon----”Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.” ~Martin Luther----”Occam's razor states that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything, however, the simple theory must be able to account for or explain what needs explaining. It's not enough to have a simpler theory if you can't account for anything. Though we shouldn't add entities beyond what's needed, we also should not subtract entities beyond what's needed.” ~Paul Manata----Until the Holy Spirit regenerates the sinner and brings him to repentance, his presuppositions will remain unaltered. And as long as the unbeliever's presuppositions are unchanged a proper acceptance and understanding of the good news of Christ's historical resurrection will be impossible. ~Dr. Bahnsen----“One of the most pernicious falsehoods ever to be almost universally accepted is that the scientific method is the only reliable way to truth” ~Professor Richard H. Bube, Stanford University----Rules of atheism"Science":

Theists will consider natural causes.Atheists will ONLY consider natural causes.

Theism posits an eternal mind followed by contingent matter.

Atheism posits matter followed by contingent minds.----"Evolution is the tinfoil hat used by atheists to keep God out of their brainwaves" ~Bevets

"It is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution, and stick by it to the bitter end" ~I. L. Cohen----from City of Angels

Seth: You're an excellent doctor.Maggie: How do you know?Seth: I have a feeling.Maggie: That's pretty flimsy evidence.Seth: Close your eyes. It's just for a moment.[touches her hand]Seth: What am I doing?Maggie: You're... touching me.Seth: Touch. How do you know?Maggie: Because, I feel it.Seth: You should trust that. You don't trust it enough.

"Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are." ~Mahatma Gandhi

"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bells, I want to run a rescue shop within the yard of hell." ~C.T. Studd

"You don't have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body." ~C.S. Lewis

"Waiting is not wasting when you are waiting on the Lord. God works while we wait." ~unknown

"Since the bible defines a Christian as one who knows God, would you consider yourself to have been a Christian according to the biblical definition?" ~Thomas Bridges

Fun Quotes

Quasar: That's like saying: "look, none of the grasshoppers evolved fire-resistant skin when I put the flamethrower to them! Evolution must be false!"